


Hagoromo Chalk Sticks

by Laura_Sinele



Series: Fictober 2020 [7]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Apologies, Banter, Bickering, Bipolar Newton Geiszler, Budding Love, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, Gift Giving, M/M, Mild Language, Newton Geiszler Has ADHD, Newton Geiszler is a Dork, Or Is It?, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26878045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_Sinele/pseuds/Laura_Sinele
Summary: There is a very special piece of chalk that Hermann uses with reverence and frugality, and he keeps on his desk apart from the other regular chalk sticks. Except it isn't there anymore, one of the chalkboards is full of nonsensical doodles, and Newton is about to feel very, very guilty.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Series: Fictober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951714
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37
Collections: Fictober20





	Hagoromo Chalk Sticks

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tumblr event Fictober, prompt 7: 'Yes, I did. What about it?'
> 
> It is also loosely based on
> 
> [ this YouTube video ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8&t=1s)
> 
> (I remembered how to put links in here :D)
> 
> On my headcanons on Newton's mental health:
> 
> Newton is a genius, he's got several PhDs, but he fails to realise something as obvious as the fact that his drift with the kaiju will go both ways. Why? Because he was too excited with the idea. Who does that? At least hypomanic bipolars and people with ADHD. 
> 
> Newton's POV is based on my own hypomanic thought process, and his rambling and need to fit jokes everywhere is based on my ADD husband's reactions to conflict.

‘Newton?’

‘It’s. Newt!’, he didn’t actually care that much. He was just physically incapable of answering Herman without any hostility at the moment. Just because. 

‘Newton, have you perchance used up the chalk stick resting on top of my desk to make this…  _ doodles _ ?’, asked Hermann, vitriol and an alarming shortage of patience patent in his tone, as he pointed tremulously with his cane to one of his blackboards. 

‘Yes, I did. What about it?’, yelled Newton over the sound of the music coming out of his earphones, ready to defend his right to let off steam when his bipolar disorder and his ADHD combined forces to make him go off his tracks. 

‘Gott im Himmel, Doktor Geizsler! There are boxes and boxes of perfectly usable chalk by every blackboard and you had to use that piece! And you had. To. Finish it!!!’ 

Uh. So it wasn’t the doodles what got him mad. Now even Newton, deep as he was in his and Hermann’s relationship of occasional masked affection and more often than not open, profuse antagonism, could tell from Hermann’s yelling fit that something was wrong. He usually pretended to not know he had crossed the line after crossing it very deliberately, but this was different. He hadn’t intended to annoy Hermann and he had no idea why that specific piece of chalk seemed to be so important. So, even though a good portion of his first impulses revolved around ridiculing and pissing further off his colleague, he unprecedentedly dropped the act.

'Jesus, Hermann, I’m sorry, I don't know, I just felt like doodling and took the first piece of chalk I saw. I swear if I had known it was so imp…' 

'If you had known! If only you had known that I don't want you dripping kaiju blue all over my work space, but how could you know, Sextuple Doctor Geiszler? It's not as if I'd told you ever, right? It's not if I had told you nine hundred seventy-five times and a half!'

'Wait a minute, is that the actual tally or you just made up a random number? Also, haha, you said sex', and yeah, Newton was back on his bullshit.

Hermann grunted like a madman, trying to break his cane over his knee. He failed, of course, and in the process he lost his balance, prompting Newt to race over there and stop him from falling. 

'Okay, Hermann,  _ obviously _ that particular piece of chalk was of some importance to you, but I didn't know, man! There was no ill intent. Look, tell me what to do to make it up to you. I can treat you to some home made noodles in town', offered Newton with his best impression of a second-hand car salesman. 

Hermann, on the other hand, had had his chance to cool down while he was fearing for his integrity a few seconds ago, and decided the best course of action was to dismiss the whole thing. Resign himself to the facts. Be a martyr of low budget enforced lab sharing. For the cause. 

'Leave it, Newton. There's nothing to do about it. And you wouldn't understand anyway', he lamented as he sat at his now chalk-less desk. 

Newton was equal parts confused and disarmed. Furious over nothing Hermann, that Newt could deal with. Actually, he took an incredible amount of joy out of pushing Hermann to it. But a defeated, practically pouting Hermann was new and unexpected. 

‘Seriously, man. Try me. I am a Sextuple Doctor after all’, he replied, going for friendly-charming. ‘Haha, now  _ I _ said sex! Wait, it’s not that funny if I accidentally say sex, I talk about sex all the time, I’m both a biologist and one sexy son of a bitch’.

It was not at all in the line of the fine, intellectual humour Hermann favoured, nonetheless he seemed endeared by Newt’s clumsy attempt at lifting his spirits. 

‘Alright, I’ll tell you. But the minute you belittle or mock me, you and I are done, Doctor Geizsler’.

‘Sure, sure’, said Newton raising his palms in surrender, I’ll behave, I swear’.

Hermann narrowed his eyes and sized him for a few seconds before talking. 

‘That piece of chalk stick that you so liberally used, was my last piece of Hagoromo chalk, a Japanese brand that achieved the perfect consistency, minimizing the chalk dust and providing a perfect gliding through the blackboard. Many mathematicians around the world favoured Hagoromo chalk, some of them going as far as attributing magical properties to it. Of course I know that chalk is chalk, and I don’t believe the stories telling a theory written in Hagoromo is always correct, but…’, Hermann drifted away for a moment. 

‘But what, dude? I’m not judging you if you have your little superstitions, you can tell me’. 

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Newton!’, he replied. ‘I am not a superstitious man. It is merely a matter of...  _ behaviourism  _ and, and, and  _ endorphins release _ . I reserved that piece of chalk to write the result of each formula merely because it felt better. But I must let go of that comfort, as many other comforts before in these trying times, since the original factory went out of business in 2015’.

‘Oh, Hermann, I am honestly so sorry. I had no idea, I promise I didn’t use up your special chalk for the thrills. But wow, look at you! Stoic and serious Hermann allowed himself a little quirk! I am proud of you, man!’

Hermann smiled tightly, bitterly.

‘Yes, well. No more quirks for me’, he said. ‘I’ll be working in my quarters today, in case the Marshall needs me’.

He left indeed, and Newton watched him walk out the lab with a strange feeling of grief.

\--

It took some time, but of course he was going to do something about it. One thing was living to bug the shit out of Hermann, and the other was watching Herman mop around because the one single thing in this world at war that made him happy was over, and it was Newton’s fault. Newton didn’t like mopey Hermann. He didn’t want to dwell too much on why exactly he didn’t like it —and, of course, he did dwell an awful lot in it—, but he was determined to stop it. A few phone calls, an intricate excuse to get a chopper to San Francisco for some samples, and less than a week after the Hagoromo incident, there was a neatly wrapped, Hagoromo box sized packet on Hermann’s lab desk. The paper had tiny cartoon jaegers fighting tiny cartoon kaiju, and the bow had stars on it. Because Hermann liked stars. 

The echoes of the cane on the concrete floor alerted Newton of Hermann’s arrival. He was suddenly terrified of having overstepped, which was something that never bothered him until he had already overstepped and it was too late to do anything about it, so chances were either he had overstepped, or he was overthinking his own overthinking. Of course, it could also be both. He put on his earphones and forgot to hit play. 

‘Newton?’

‘Yes, buddy?’, and  _ buddy?!  _ For real? __

Hermann was at his desk, holding the package. 

‘Do you happen to know anything about this?’

Newton racked his brain for something smooth to say, wishing his anxiety hadn’t vanished his impulsivity and his hypomanic boldness. He was already standing next to Hermann, so he needed to speak. It was the socially acceptable thing to do. 

‘Uh, yes, I do, I do happen to know about it, but why don’t you open it and find out what it is?’

Hermann looked at him with a very complicated facial expression that said he didn’t want to trust Newt but somehow he felt inclined to do so. Or maybe Newton was reading too much into it. Then Hermann carefully set apart the bow and ripped the paper. Newton had never ever, ever, ever, ever seen Hermann smile, not with his full face at least, and never without sarcasm. Newton’s chest hurt like a motherfucker. 

‘You… How did you do this?’, before getting an answer he was already wiping clean a panel of blackboard. 

Newton would have wanted to say something smug about it, but he felt soft all over and couldn’t get rid of the silly smile on his lips. 

‘Well, I, uh, I have my connections’. 

Hermann grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him lightly, with a little laugh. Newton realised that was a great deal of physical contact and PDA for Hermann, and quenched his need to engage in a full hug, maybe a kiss? A small one. When had he started to think about kissing Hermann? Meanwhile Hermann reverently selected one stick and started to write on the board. 

‘Oh, Newton, you didn’t need to do this! I don’t even want to know what lies you had to tell to bring these here, but thank you, thank you so much!’, he paused his arithmetical frenzy and turned to face Newton. ‘I believe an apology is in order, though. When I picked up the package I didn’t want to trust you. But somehow I felt inclined to do so’.

Newton couldn’t help but laugh. 

‘Ah, that’s okay, Hermann. I wouldn’t trust me either’, he started his way to his work station, but he decided against it, walking up to Hermann again. ‘By the way, I understand how you feel about this chalk. I mean, you think I can’t do better than a 1997 Sonny Walkman in 2025?’, he said pointing at the earphones around his neck with a nervous little laugh. ‘So yeah, of course I needed to do this. One thing is living to bug the shit out of you, and the other is watching you mop around because the one single thing in this world at war that makes you happy is over, and it was my fault. Besides, I don’t like to see you moping. I just, ah… I just don’t’. He was looking at his feet. Why was he looking at his feet? He was talking to Hermann, not to his goddamn sneakers. Oh, and he was crying for some reason.

‘Newton’, Herman called softly. When Newton looked up Hermann was offering him a Hagoromo chalk stick. ‘Would you like to make some doodles with me?’

Newton took the chalk piece, sniffed in his snot in a very undignified manner, and joined Hermann by the blackboard. After a while drawing in silence, without taking his eyes off the board, Hermann awkwardly tapped twice on Newton’s back, right between his scapulae. Newt froze at the contact, and turned to look at Hermann, who kept himself busy with his chalk. 

‘Thank you, Newton’, he said without looking at him. 

Newton smiled and went back to his fantasy kaiju anatomy. The times where he didn’t feel like he was in a rush were rare and precious. He wasn’t about to waste one wishing for more. 

One chalk stick at a time. 

  
  
  



End file.
